I quit being my kids’ maid

Recently, I had a minor nervous breakdown, during which I decided I was completely over my kids. The thrill was gone. I wanted a divorce.

I'm sure you've never felt that way, but I decided that being the mom of teenagers wasn't nearly as much fun as everyone promised me it would be.

It all started innocently, when I took Curly Girl and three of her adolescent girlfriends overnight to San Diego for her 13th birthday. She had begged to do this, and in a fit of dementia, I thought it would be a great idea.

Next time, I'm just going to bash a brick into my skull for 28 hours. It will be cheaper and more fun.

During the trip, the four girls treated me like the maid -- or maybe the nanny -- since I not only cleaned up after them but also paid for everything. And I came back fuming--so angry I made them listen to Broadway musicals in the car all the way home.

I got home, in what could be only described as a sour mood, and discovered that Cheetah Boy, who spent the previous night with a friend, had invited a whole bunch of high-school kids over to our house for a party that very night.

Yes, I know, that sounds like a mother's dream of heaven. Hordes of adolescents tromping through the house eating everything like the Bibleplague of locusts.

Regardless, I snapped and made everyone go home. There may have been some yelling involved. I don't really remember. It's all a blur.

That was the point at which I just decided I wasn't going to be a mom anymore.

I was done cooking and cleaning for monosyllabic teenagers who flinched when I touched them and grumbled when I tried to shove delicious home-cooked meals down their throats, before sneaking over to McDonalds to eat garbage.

I decided that, from now on, I would just provide them with shelter and a refrigerator full of food. For everything else, they were on their own.

Ergo, I stopped cooking and cleaning and just lay on the couch with an adult beverage in my hand, watching--for once--the shows I liked on TV. Any question the kids asked me was answered with a mumbled, "Dunno."

This went on for a couple of days before it seemed to sink in that I really was no longer Mom, aka Maid Marla, the lady who nags you to eat your vegetables.

This may have happened when I was chopping onions and crying in the kitchen for a dinner I was making for myself alone.

"No, everything's just fine," I snapped, wondering if an adolescent was capable of grasping sarcasm. Then, I realized with horror that I was acting exactly like my own passive-aggressive family, in which every emotional scene turned into The Price Is Right, during which the participants were supposed to guess how the other is feeling.

So I told him that I was very sad because I didn't feel like we were a family any more, that all he and his sister did was text their friends every minute and ignore me, and our house was just a way station to change clothes. And that I missed the days when they were cute little kids and we all did things together.

Greatly to my astonishment, he said he felt the same way. He said that, every time he tried to pour out his heart to his sister, she turned away and started texting in the middle of the conversation.

"Imagine if you had two people doing that to you," I told him. "All the time. Would you like it?"

No, he said, he wouldn't. And then he told me that he thought technology was ruining our family life. And vowed to turn off the TV and spend more time with the family.

We had rather a long talk, remarkable because I thought he had lost the power of speech in eighth grade. I really could not believe the wise and insightful things that were coming out of his 14-year-old mouth.

I started feeling a little more cheerful. The very next day, when I proposed taking Buddy the Wonder Dog to the dog beach together, the kids piled in the car without even once complaining that the trip was ruining their lives.

At the Huntington dog beach, the kids, without speaking, locked their phones in the glove box and actually went to the beach free of electronics, something that hasn't happened since, well, ever.

I couldn't help wondering if some alien pods had perchance come down and kidnapped my real kids, and replaced them with these pleasant avatars. I was thinking that, if so, I really didn't mind.

At bedtime that night, Curly Girl even kissed me goodnight.

And I decided that maybe I wouldn't mind being their mom for at least a couple more days.

But I'm keeping the TV remote and the adult beverages nearby, just in case.